Artist concept of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory satellite. Image Credit:NASA's Goddard Space Flight...
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Artist concept of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory satellite.
Image Credit:NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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NASA and Japanese space agency-JAXA has selected Thursday, Feb. 27 EST (Friday, Feb. 28 JST) as the launch date and for the Japanese H-IIA rocket carrying the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory satellite from JAXA's Tanegashima Space Center.
GPM is an international satellite mission that will provide advanced observations of rain and snowfall worldwide, several times a day to enhance our understanding of the water and energy cycles that drive Earth's climate.
The data provided by the Core Observatory will be used to calibrate precipitation measurements made by an international network of partner satellites to quantify when, where, and how much it rains or snows around the world.
With the addition of the new Core Observatory, the satellites in the GPM constellation will include the NASA-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership mission, launched in 2012; the NASA-JAXA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), launched in 1997; and several other satellites managed by JAXA, NOAA, the U.S. Department of Defense, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, the Centre National D'Etudies Spatiales of France and the Indian Space Research Organisation.
GPM is composed of one core satellite and approximately eight constellation satellites.
The core satellite carries a dual-frequency precipitation radar (DPR) and a microwave radiometer, and the constellation satellites carry microwave radiometers.
JAXA is responsible for launch (TBD) and development of a key instrument, DPR, in cooperation with the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT). NASA will develop the core satellite bus and its microwave radiometer. Other partner countries and organization are responsible for the development of the constellation satellites. Multiple number of constellation satellites will enable global measurement of precipitation about every three hours.
The satellite is designed to pool together precipitation measurements taken by the constellation of orbiting U.S. and international partner satellites, resulting in a single and comprehensive dataset of global precipitation every three hours.
The satellite will measure rain and snow using two science instruments: the GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR). The GMI captures precipitation intensities and horizontal patterns, while the DPR provides insights into the three-dimensional structure of rain, snow and other precipitation particles. Together, these two instruments provide a database of measurements against which other partner satellites' microwave observations can be meaningfully compared and combined to make a global precipitation dataset.
The GPM mission is a partnership led by NASA and JAXA. Goddard built and assembled the satellite. JAXA provided the DPR instrument and launch services. The Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo., built the GMI under contract to Goddard. The spacecraft, the size of a small private jet, is the largest satellite ever built at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
A U.S. Air Force C-5 transport aircraft airlifted the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory to Japan on Nov. 23.
For more information on the Global Precipitation Measurement mission, visit: NASA and JAXA sites.
